Skin treatment employing laser based systems, usually pulsed laser based systems is well known in the art. Such laser based systems are used inter alia for cutaneous vascular lesions treatment and for hair removal, the latter application being described for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,059,192 to Zaias and 5,226,907 to Tankovich.
As is also well known in the art, the operation of laser based systems for cutaneous treatment is more effective when the tissue is cooled. Examples for prior art devices for cooling the skin during laser treatment are U.S. Pat. No. 5,057,104, U.S. Pat. No. 5,282,797 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,486,172 to Chess specifically designed for cutaneous vascular lesions treatments and U.S. Pat. No. 5,344,418 to Ghaffari.
A major disadvantage of prior art laser based systems for cutaneous treatment is that the operation of the laser is not visible to the physician carrying the treatment, thus he can not be sure that the laser covered the entire area to be treated. This results in an inhomogeneous treatment of the skin, such as an inhomogeneous removal of hair from the patient skin in the case of hair removal treatment.